Not about drinks...but still local

We joined a new CSA this year, Anchor Run, just outside of Wrightstown, here in Bucks County. It actually grew out of a conversation I struck up with a guy at Watch City Brewing in Waltham, Mass., of all places. I was having dinner there (I was in the area to do an event), and just started talking to the guy next to me about local beer, and local food, and local produce, and how I belonged to a CSA...and not only is Derek McGeehan a farmer running a CSA, he runs the CSA that's nearest to my home in Bucks County...and he loves craft beer!

Well, who am I to kick Fate in the balls? We joined Anchor Run, and we've been enjoying it, all through the heavy rains, and the four hours of weeding green beans. We got a lot of eggplant and hot peppers, which I've loved, and I finally found a way to cook celeriac that I liked. Lots and lots of greens -- mustard, kale, Italian dandelion, bok choy, and some others I never heard of (tat soy?) -- that cook up nice, and plenty of lettuce and tomatoes, and lots of spuds and onions.

We also got some beef through them from another CSA (Tussock Sedge Farm, in northern Bucks), and last night, a day after our final harvest pick-up at Anchor Run, I decided to do an all-CSA dinner. I marinated a nice piece of London broil from Tussock Sedge (used Anchor Run garlic in the marinade), cooked up a mess of varied greens with sesame oil and chili paste and more garlic, grilled the beef with a foil pack of CSA potatoes, and steamed a pot of CSA broccoli. Add in a big CSA lettuce salad...and we had quite a meal. The beef was delicious, spuds were perfect...the broccoli had a worm in it, but hey, it's all organic, so you toss the worm and keep eating. Great meal!

An Embarrassment of Cabbage

I know I've mentioned before that we have a farm share from a CSA outfit in New Jersey (Honey Brook Organic Farm). Unfortunately we had to miss our boxed share last week (we were in Massachusetts...and we missed the watermelon, dammit!), but some of the stuff from previous weeks is holding up well...including four heads of cabbage. Now, I like cabbage, a lot, although I'm not a big coleslaw fan, but that's a lot of cabbage. So I'm dealing.

Last night we had grilled chicken with a honey/garlic glaze (Safeway's house brand, and it's...well, I'd use a really bad word for emphasis on how ----ing good it is, okay?), and I shredded one head and sauteed it with a red onion (also from the CSA) and mushrooms, sprinkled with black pepper and Penzey's Mural of Flavor, one of my favorite spice blends. It was good, and I finished up the leftovers this morning with a Berks Black Angus hot dog sliced up in it.

Right now I'm prepping a kettle of my dad's Old-Fashioned Cabbage Soup, a Pennsylvania Dutch-style recipe that has sweet and sour in it:

1 lb. beef cubes, cut to 3/4"
1 head of cabbage, shredded
28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
3 beef bouillon cubes
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vinegar
1 tsp. salt
5 cups of water

Brown the meat in the kettle in a little oil, add other ingredients, bring to a boil, then simmer for three hours. (I add a little tarragon to mine, love tarragon with cabbage.)

The third head? Not sure. Anyone got some good ideas?

Root -- The Launch

Back in May, almost three months ago, I went to the launch of Root, a project of Art In The Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a Philadelphia museum/shop/movement/institution that defies easy description. Here, go read about it.

Okay? Well, now get your head around the idea that these people not only make and sell shirts, soap, and useful accessories, they make spirits, specifically Root, an herbal liqueur that hearkens back to the origins of root beer, a tincture of bark, roots, herbs. Root itself is certified organic, and is not, as they say at the site, a flavored vodka or sweet liqueur. I'd heard about Root through brewery historian Rich Wagner, who'd worked with AITA on a display of brewery machinery and labels, and I was very curious to try it.

When I arrived at the launch, I was greeted with a glass of Root Birch, a highball of Root and birch beer (not root beer; birch beer). My notes: "The Root blends almost completely into the birch beer, intensifying the stuff that makes birch beer different (and prickly)." This was my favorite of the Root cocktails; I apologize that it was the simplest, but it was just so companionable -- and very Pennsylvania.

Nic Jarrett, a mixologist from APO Bar + Lounge (formerly Apothecary), was working a small but high-quality bar at the back, making three cocktails: Forbidden Root, Scots Connexion, and Root Miner. I tried the Forbidden Root*: "It's sweet, tangy, twisted, and most definitely herbal. The white grapefruit juice comes through, but doesn't overwhelm." Next I tried the Scots Connexion**: "Grapefruit peel/oils give a fresh peppery top to the cocktail, and the drink peels away from that, tires squealing; a very authoritative drink. Not soothing like a dessert, but affirming like a bracing wind."

By now the whiskey man in me was coming to the fore: I skipped Root Miner (a Martinez variation) and went for straight Root in a snifter. "The roots of the drink are clear in the smell -- root beer, birch/wintergreen, tea, anise, and a surge of bitterness. I've smelled pieces of this in bourbon. It's a sin to put this in a cocktail [I'm willing to make an exception for that birch beer highball, though!]. It's alive, it's vital and virile, but high-and-lightly sweet, like a fresh leaf of mint, with a lovely lingering finish on the back palate. I'd love to pour a shot of this over shaved ice."

I liked the stuff. I've been seeing it on some backbars in Philly, and it's in the State Store System. Try some first -- try the better cocktail bars in Philly -- and see if it's not a lot better than slamming shots of Jägermeister. And...I apologize for taking this long to post.


*Forbidden Root
3/4 oz. ROOT
3/4 oz. TRU vodka (Root was contracted at this distillery)
1 oz. fresh squeezed white grapefruit juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
1/4 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice
1/4 oz. Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
dash of Angostura
Shaken and strained into a cocktail glass.

**Scots Connexion
1 1/2 oz. Famous Grouse blended scotch whisky
1 oz. ROOT
dash Peychaud’s bitters
Stirred over cracked ice and strained into a chilled, Vieux Carre absinthe-rinsed rocks glass. Garnished with a flamed grapefruit twist.

Many more recipes here.

IPAllapolooza -- VII

I did get to stop at Mahar's in Albany today, but only briefly -- sorry, Bill, I didn't get a chance at any WiFi to let you know, we should have done cell #s -- and grabbed a Harpoon IPA. Actually, I had a few sips of Cathy's: I had a Chiswick Bitter (okay; should have waited for cask at Memphis) and a Guinness 250th Anniversary (nice: full, a bit chocolatey, much better body). The 'Poon IPA is indeed more like a pale ale, but it's good: drinkable, fresh, good hop character (not massive, but well-defined). Think of it as a winning jockey next to DIPA's NFL linebacker.

Then I had some Wolaver's IPA, another organic. This was more like an ESB: malty, not a lot of hop character. Okay beer, but I wouldn't think "Oh, an IPA," if someone handed it to me blind.

Wolaver's 10th Anniversary Farmhouse Ale

Wolaver's celebrated their 10th anniversary, appropriately, with a Farmhouse Ale. It's a saison, and a fairly robust one. Plenty of spicy yeasty character, and a drying dose of bitterness. Is it 100% organic? It has "plenty" of organic malts and hops, so it's your guess. "Plenty" is good enough for me, given the tough organic hops situation. It also went well with my grilled bluefish and grilled portabella dinner. Cheers, Wolaver's: nice beer!

Troubles down on the (organic) farm

My latest Condé Nast Portfolio column is up, a piece on the current controversy in organic brewing.

The problem: hops, which are a booger to grow organically; demand, which is booming, thanks to the overall surge in demand for organic products; and regulatory change, which may make it impossible for brewers to use anything less than all organic hops in beer labeled "organic."

In a nutshell: demand for organic beers is growing much faster than the ability of farmers to grow more organic hops, while a lawsuit brought against the USDA may force the agency to take hops off an exemption list that allows conventionally-grown hops in organic beers under certain circumstances.

The surprise: one of the brewers that have already gone to using all organic hops...is Anheuser-Busch. (Yes, there are craft brewers using all organic hops as well.)

Read all about it.

Peak Organic Nut Brown Ale

Organic beer. As I said in a story not long ago, it kind of sounds like "Amish sex." But beer was made that way for over 5,000 years, and...Amish babies are still made that way. (When I get a good line, I hate to use it only once.)

Organic beer's a phenomenon right now, booming like the rest of the organic market, although there's a bit of a problem sourcing organic hops. That became quite a bit more acute recently when the USDA backed into suddenly requiring all hops in organic beer to be organic -- they were previously allowing some non-organic hops in "organic" beers because organic hops simply weren't available in some varieties -- but that's a huge story, outside the scope of this tasting note (and it's a story I'm getting paid to write elsewhere, so I'm not doing it for free here!).

You can tell a beer is a phenomenon when contract brewing starts. Folks see the opportunity, and they can't wait to slowly raise the money to build a brewery and slowly build a market. They want to get in right away, and that's what Jon Cadoux did. He homebrewed some batches of organic beer, than cut a deal with Shipyard Brewing in Portland to brew up his Peak Brewing beers: an Amber, a Pale Ale, and the Nut Brown I'm drinking right now.

In that piece, there's a great quote from Morgan Wolaver (owner of Otter Creek/Wolaver's, where he brews the Wolaver's line of organic beers) about why people will or won't drink organic beers that applies beautifully to this one. "Is organic beer healthier for you? If you drank the beer over the next 60 years, maybe. It is better for the planet. Benefits in that way trickle all the way back to the farmer. But when you're sitting at the bar, do you really give a shit about the farmer? It has to be a quality beer." Dead on, Morgan: I don't care about who or how it's made: how's it taste?

Jon Cadoux has done okay on that angle here. As I've said many times, brown ale is one of my least favorite craft-type, traditional style. It just doesn't do much for me. But this is tasty stuff, in a laid-back (best-guess ABV is 4.6%), easy-drinking kind of way. It sidesteps the hop issue rather neatly by not going real hoppy (Magic Hat's Orlio IPA, a seasonal release, tasted pretty decent yesterday (I nipped a sip from a bottle I used to make a loaf of beer bread), but more in the pale ale range), and focuses instead on the malty, nutty, cocoa aspects: smart.

Now...would this be my first choice? To be honest, probably never. But that's more a reflection on me: I'm not a brown ale fan, and I'm not really what you'd call 'crunchy' or green. But if I got one of the e-mails I get fairly often, asking about beers for diabetics, or fatvolk, or vegans, or celiacs, and someone asked me if there were any organic beers...I'd recommend this one without hesitation...for them. Me, I'm looking for an organic pilsner. Anybody know of any?